Should we use "and" or "&"?
-
Our client has an ampersand in their brand name. The logo has "&", their url is spelled out. I'm trying to get them to standardize the use of the name for directories/listings. Should we use "and" or "&"?
-
I'd go for &.
I optimized a page for "Canada & New England Cruises" some years back. The results were:
canada and new england cruises = 24th of 6,300,000 results canada & new england cruises = 32nd of 7,660,000 results
This indicates to me that Google probably knows the difference.
-
Greetings VernonMack, Thanks for coming to Q&A with your question. I'm the Local SEO Associate here in the forum. Your question is a good one and, happily, the answer here is simple. You need to use whatever your legal business name is. If your DBA uses ampersand, then consistently use this to describe your business on your website, local listings and elsewhere. If it uses and, then use that. Be consistent and you will be fine.
-
and = & (much of a muchness really)
I'd go with "&" i the directories if that's what's in the logo so consumers get familiar / see consistency with the brand - also it's shorter
-
Use at&t or at t (including spacing).
Let's refer to the At&t example
If you use "&" google will still read it as att or at&t however if you include "and" then this becomes a totally different term.
So try with spacing or &
Hope this helps,
Vahe
-
Hi Woj. Thanks for the reply. Looks like my first question was unclear. URL is already established. Please see clarification note to Francisco above.
-
Thanks, Francisco. I need to use one or the other. i.e. "Heating & Air" or "Heating and Air" because HeatingAir would not be right.
To clarify, I am trying to determine the best way to add the client's NAME (not url) to listings/directories. I was just noting that the url is already ...heatingandair.com.
-
The "&" character is typically reserved for the querystring portion of the URL
I'd avoid using "and" or "&" in url's except for in the TLD if it's critical for the brand
Also, another tip.. if you use "and", make sure it doesn't get confused with the surrounding words, e.g.
- camelandhorse.com may be read as "came land horse" or "camel and horse"
(sorry, no real-word example came mind lol - except for the old expertsexchange.com URL)
-
I would probably use AT&T's example (ATT). I believe Matt Cutts said the & is looked at as a character. I tried going straight to at&t.com and it sent me to a SERP. Using the word "and" in the domain sounds weird to me.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Badges & SEO
Hello, Moz Community! We're working on creating an affiliate badge for events that make our best-of list and we're wondering: if every event website embedded the badge (could be as many as 70), would having the same image hosting URL for each one raise concerns with Google? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | EveryActionHQ0 -
Using http: shorthand inside canonical tag ("//" instead of "http:") can cause harm?
HI, I am planning to launch a new site, and shortly after to move to HTTPS. to save the need to change over 5,000 canonical tags in pages the webmaster suggested we implement inside the rel canonical "//" instead of the absolute path, would that do any damage or be a problem? oranges-south-dakota" />
Technical SEO | | Kung_fu_Panda0 -
Can we use images from the internet of celebrities?
Hi, Can we use images from the internet of celebrities? We have a Indian celebrity website. Can we use images from other websites? Would that be legal? as 100's of sites use them? Should i have them no index ? or no follow pages? Thanks
Technical SEO | | jomin740 -
Implementation of rel="next" & rel="prev"
Hi All, I'm looking to implement rel="next" & rel="prev", so I've been looking for examples. I looked at the source code for the MOZ.com forum, if anyone one is going to do it properly MOZ are. I noticed that the rel="next" & rel="prev" tags have been implemented in the a href tags that link to the previous and next pages rather than in the head. I'm assuming this is fine with Google but in their documentation they state to put the tags in the . Does it matter? Neil.
Technical SEO | | NDAY0 -
404 Errors & Redirection
Hi, I'm working with someone who recently had two websites redesigned. The old permalink structure consisted of domain/year/month/date/post-name. Their developer changed the new permalink structure to domain/post-name, but apparently he didn't redirect the old URLs to the new ones so we're finding that links from external sites result in 404 errors (once I remove the date in the URL, the links work fine). Each site has 3-4 years worth of blog posts, so there are quite a few that would need to be changed. I was thinking of using the Redirection plugin - would that be the best way to fix this sitewide on both sites?Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks, Carolina
Technical SEO | | csmm0 -
What are the SEO implications of URLs that use a # in them?
I have several clients who have begun to ask questions about sites that are designed to look like a single page. When you click on a link, the URL changes but it uses a # before (i.e. http://www.kelloggs.com/teamusa**/#**/teamusa/athletes/kerri-walsh.html. What are the SEO implications of having a page set up this way? I noticed that Google has indexed this page but the indexed URL does not include a #. Is Google indexing a separate version of this page? Any insights would be really helpful! Thanks
Technical SEO | | VMLYRDiscoverability0 -
International Websites: rel="alternate" hreflang="x"
Hi people, I keep on reading and reading , but I won't get it... 😉 I mean this page: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=189077&topic=2370587&ctx=topic On the bottom of the page they say: Step 2: Use rel="alternate" hreflang="x" Update the HTML of each URL in the set by adding a set of rel="alternate" hreflang="x" link elements. Include a rel="alternate" hreflang="x" link for every URL in the set, like this: This markup tells Google's algorithm to consider all of these pages as alternate versions of each other. OK! Each URL needs this markup. BUT: Do i need it exactly as written above, or do I have to put in the complete URL of the site, like: The next question is, what happens exactly in the SERPS when I do it like this (an also with Step1 that I haven't copied here)? Google will display the "canonical"-version of the page, but wehen a user from US clicks he will get on http://en-us.example.com/**page.htm **??? I tried to find other sites which use this method, but I haven't found one. Can someone give me an example.website??? Thank you, thank you very much! André
Technical SEO | | waynestock0 -
Should Canonical URLs be used in Wordpress?
Wordpress offers Canonical URLs in the "All in one SEO" settings. I know that canonical tags for page content will cause the search engine to ignore the content, but I don't understand this setting in Wordpress. The Canonical URLs box for my blog had been checked until a couple weeks ago. I unchecked it (removing the canonical tag) and now I have about 300 duplicate content pages acccording to my SEOMoz reports. It appears that it's just the blog tag in the url now that is causing the confusion. Here's an example of the same url with two tags: http://www.rmtracking.com/blog/tag/aclu/ http://www.rmtracking.com/blog/tag/rfid/ Should I activate the canonical URL setting in Wordpress again. If not, how can I fix this? Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Regards, Brad
Technical SEO | | BradBorst0